The problem is, with Trump's unchecked power and erratic behavior, nobody knows what they are dealing with. He just likes to play emperor and fancies himself a dealmaker. The deals are all attempted to benefit him and or satisfy his whims/ego.

Thus he will use DACA, farmers or whoever as leverage. Using Amazon though - super dumb. May be the 1st target of his with actual power to fight back. Plus other big businesses and the markets do not like this [expletive] -having one of their own-(even a competitor and not universally well-liked one -but jeesh their stock value has many on the hook) subject of an infantile brain POTUS' mad tweetsThus- Back on topic - the office of the presidecy has had lasting damage.

, and the people who believed him and voted for him are the ones who are going to get hit the worst.

Question 1: What is the proper level of concern/sympathy for the trump-voting midwestern pork or soybean farmer who will be economically decimated by this "good and easily won" trade war?Question 2: Will that same hypothetical farmer vote against Trump in the midterms and/or 2020 as a result?

I feel like this is a question I'm uniquely qualified to answer.

1) It should be huge. I've seen a ton of farmer hate online this week "good [expletive] em" sort of thing. The ag economy is the base of all the economy. You have to realize that farmers going under is bad for everyone. Your food cost will go up and worse yet it will me even more consolidation of production. Which I think is bad in any industry.

1a) is you guys don't understand how bad this will be in rural America which is already dying. When these farms go under they are going to take banks with them. I think a lot of city people don't realize that, but of the five banks in my town it's almost undeniable that the two smaller "community" banks will be gone if the farm economy crashes. In 08 during the crash (also rural economy crash that no one talked about) we lost a few banks. This will be a lot worse this time around.

1b) Everything here is tied to farming. Seed and chemical dealers, feed dealers, "farm stores," restaurants (whose main breakfast and dinner crowd are farmers), and dozens of other service industries related to farming (mechanical, veterinary, accounting, etc) are all in danger if the farm economy crashes.

2) Will they vote for Trump again? Probably not. Believe it or not a lot were reluctant the first time around. I know a lot of farmers who vote both ways, particularly for President based on Ag policy. The Farm Bureau was not particularly sold on Trump and his anti TPP stance or his anti immigration stance. In fact if Hillary had not come out against it too (which made no sense to me) I bet the FB would have endorsed her and it would have swung a lot of farmers. Most farmers I know are much more practical than say your Evangelical conservative. They typically vote with their wallet and as I said I can see a lot of them either voting for a good Dem candidate or sitting out the 2020 Presidential.

Now admittedly this is just my community of farmers, but I'm pretty plugged into that and they aren't generally the unreasonable people your run of the mill conservative is.

If there is another farming crisis on the scale of the one in the 1980s, I kind of expect I might either lose my job or have to relocate, or both. That 1980s crisis decimated this area and it took decades to recover, and certain areas never fully recovered. There are still some empty/underutilized factory buildings around here left over from back then. It's going to be ugly if we go through something like that. I hope it can be avoided. But like I said, the situation seems pretty shaky.

I think we were headed there before Trump. Now it's just going to be worse. Commodity prices can not support the insane input, land, and equipment prices we are seeing. Land prices have backed off quite a bit from the insanity of two years ago but cash rents have not. I just tried to rent some ground that the owner insisted was worth $300 an acre. My math penciled out to $150 tops. New tractors are 250k for a small one and 700k for the big ones. Combines with heads will get you pretty close to a million. It's just not doable with $2 corn and $5 soybeans and most people are paying for it on credit. I know farmers who owe 20-30 million dollars. A Lot of dominoes are going to fall this year and once they start they probably won't stop for a while.

We are very fortunate in that we have done our best to cash flow our inputs and only borrow on equipment which we can general finance cheap and pay off quick. Others aren't that lucky.

, and the people who believed him and voted for him are the ones who are going to get hit the worst.

Question 1: What is the proper level of concern/sympathy for the trump-voting midwestern pork or soybean farmer who will be economically decimated by this "good and easily won" trade war?Question 2: Will that same hypothetical farmer vote against Trump in the midterms and/or 2020 as a result?

I feel like this is a question I'm uniquely qualified to answer.

1) It should be huge. I've seen a ton of farmer hate online this week "good [expletive] em" sort of thing. The ag economy is the base of all the economy. You have to realize that farmers going under is bad for everyone. Your food cost will go up and worse yet it will me even more consolidation of production. Which I think is bad in any industry.

1a) is you guys don't understand how bad this will be in rural America which is already dying. When these farms go under they are going to take banks with them. I think a lot of city people don't realize that, but of the five banks in my town it's almost undeniable that the two smaller "community" banks will be gone if the farm economy crashes. In 08 during the crash (also rural economy crash that no one talked about) we lost a few banks. This will be a lot worse this time around.

1b) Everything here is tied to farming. Seed and chemical dealers, feed dealers, "farm stores," restaurants (whose main breakfast and dinner crowd are farmers), and dozens of other service industries related to farming (mechanical, veterinary, accounting, etc) are all in danger if the farm economy crashes.

2) Will they vote for Trump again? Probably not. Believe it or not a lot were reluctant the first time around. I know a lot of farmers who vote both ways, particularly for President based on Ag policy. The Farm Bureau was not particularly sold on Trump and his anti TPP stance or his anti immigration stance. In fact if Hillary had not come out against it too (which made no sense to me) I bet the FB would have endorsed her and it would have swung a lot of farmers. Most farmers I know are much more practical than say your Evangelical conservative. They typically vote with their wallet and as I said I can see a lot of them either voting for a good Dem candidate or sitting out the 2020 Presidential.

Now admittedly this is just my community of farmers, but I'm pretty plugged into that and they aren't generally the unreasonable people your run of the mill conservative is.

If there is another farming crisis on the scale of the one in the 1980s, I kind of expect I might either lose my job or have to relocate, or both. That 1980s crisis decimated this area and it took decades to recover, and certain areas never fully recovered. There are still some empty/underutilized factory buildings around here left over from back then. It's going to be ugly if we go through something like that. I hope it can be avoided. But like I said, the situation seems pretty shaky.

I think we were headed there before Trump. Now it's just going to be worse. Commodity prices can not support the insane input, land, and equipment prices we are seeing. Land prices have backed off quite a bit from the insanity of two years ago but cash rents have not. I just tried to rent some ground that the owner insisted was worth $300 an acre. My math penciled out to $150 tops. New tractors are 250k for a small one and 700k for the big ones. Combines with heads will get you pretty close to a million. It's just not doable with $2 corn and $5 soybeans and most people are paying for it on credit. I know farmers who owe 20-30 million dollars. A Lot of dominoes are going to fall this year and once they start they probably won't stop for a while.

We are very fortunate in that we have done our best to cash flow our inputs and only borrow on equipment which we can general finance cheap and pay off quick. Others aren't that lucky.

Others (most) also voted for this lunatic.

And they will pay the price. It's just unfortunate that many others will also pay for their stupidity.

I'll go out on a limb and say I don't think they're gonna understand. Farmers have been cultivating this relationship with China for years. The last time President Xi visited America, he specifically visited Iowa. There is a reason why Branstad is the ambassador to China. Chinese investors funded 50% of the construction of a $40 million hotel + convention center in Muscatine of all places, because they want to make Muscatine an international grain port. I guess the relationship will be on hold until this moron leaves office. Hopefully we still have an ag economy by then.

Reading that, she and the GOP Christo-fascism sounds worse than I imagined.

Fundamentalism is the single biggest problem in America. Then greed. You name a non-greed challenge that's large-scale in this country--post-objectivism, belief in lies/fake news, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, you name it--and it goes back to fundamentalism of some sort.